Greetings from the Land of Enchantment

Friday, March 21, 2014

Wear the World as a Loose Garment

This past week we had a member of our community pass away. It brought me back to the bedside of my father in his final 72 hours. Nothing remained; all the tattvas had been purified. The man who was my father, the kind, wise, funny, brilliant, caring small-town doctor was now just bone and breath—and that for only a short while longer. When Saint Francis spoke these words, “wear the world as a loose garment,” he was referencing this all-too-short life we live and how we should approach living it. He was cautioning us to not become too attached. But as I reflect on these words in light of this path, the path of Kundalini Yoga, there’s so much more we can give to this simple phrase.
In our path, we speak of Sahej, in fact it’s one of the five stages of Spiritual Maturity or Wisdom. And it means ease. To come to a place of ease and grace in our practice is to find ourselves on the threshold of mastery. To come to a place of ease as a woman is to give up the pretenses of make-up and tight clothes because we know have nothing to make up for—and anything we can’t breathe in doesn’t belong in our closet anymore. To come to a place of ease in our own lives is to understand that all we can do is our best; the rest is in the hands of the doer, Karta Purkh. To come to a place of ease, sahej, is to come into a state of acceptance of what is. We quit trying so hard. We quit pushing the river. We quit anything and everything that used to tie us up in knots, whether it’s what our neighbors might think, what our children might do, what our partner might say. We quit judging everything and everyone—including ourselves. We loosen our belts and take a deep breath and see what lies before us as good. And in this way, we align ourselves with God who sees it all as good, in the beginning and in the end.
Sahej is a state of peace and equanimity. It’s a state of non-judgment. It’s a state of rest. So take it easy today. Life is short, but it’s also long. Loosen up a bit. Laugh as often as you can. Be at ease at least once every day. And you may find, oddly enough, that the rest takes care of itself.
If death serves as that reminder to us of these basic things, then may we be brave enough to look into its face often enough to remember: It is a good day to die, and with that as your foundation, Live!

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Community Meditations and the Power of Prayer

When communities meditate together, great things are possible. We have several examples within our 3HO family, Summer and Winter Solstice, Yogi Bhajan and Guru Ram Das’ Birthday Global meditations, Peace Prayer Day, International Peace Day, and more. And all around the world, communities come together to set their own intentions: someone is dying, someone is being born, 40-day, 90-day and 120-day journeys of intention, purpose and prayer.
Recently the community here at Hacienda de Guru Ram Das set an intention for rain. We were joined by yogis from California to Southwest Texas and well, there’s no other way to say it, we brought the rain! Actually, Guru’s Grace brought the rain. Either way, it was a blessing. And we’re going to continue to pray because this drought is ongoing. And as Yogi Bhajan said, “drought is a good minister because it gets so many people to pray.” And praying together is a beautiful thing.
It’s possible that this is the shabad Guru Amar Das wrote it in response to another great drought in Northern India. The people came to him saying they were being ridiculed by other yoga schools. People were saying their Guru wasn’t a True Guru if he couldn’t relieve the drought and bring the rain. The interesting part of the way this story is told is that Guru Amar Das didn’t then pray to have the drought relieved. Instead, he wrote the shabad and told his people to sing and pray together. It was their collective prayer that would affect the change. And so we do the same today, we come together to pray and recite the Guru’s Bani, and the sound current sends itself out into the universe and everything is changed.
There’s still time to join our communal prayer. Go to www.truebeingbeingtrue.com to find the shabad sheet and a recording. A people who pray together, stay together. Take every opportunity you can to join one another in circles of intention, healing and love. Unite in consciousness and become one; group consciousness serves us in ultimately cultivating universal consciousness. This is the path. This is the journey. Let’s walk it together.